SiriusXM Serious About Acquiring Pandora

CNBC’s reporting that SiriusXM is going to buy Pandora in an all-stock deal valued at $3.5 billion.

As The New York Times writes about the deal, “Pandora rose to success by providing tailored radio stations for its users that were sprinkled with ads” but that in recent years “it has struggled to compete with rival services like Spotify and Apple Music.

The Times also notes that Pandora has been a potential acquisition target for at least two years, and that SiriusXM had been in the running to buy the company since it injected $480 million of funding into the company last year.

The agreement between SiriusXM and Pandora includes a “go-shop” provision where Pandora “may actively solicit, receive, evaluate, and potentially enter negotiations with parties that offer alternative proposals following the execution date of the definitive agreement.”

The company’s acquisition of Pandora would make SiriusXM the world’s largest audio entertainment company, with over $7 billion in combined revenue in 2018.